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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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It’s because the service became looked at the same way special forces is: it’s a trophy that can be used to open doors to other jobs, or bragging rights.

So it becomes something that needs to be equally distributed. That’s why you have a woman running it talking about increasing the number of women she hires, and then the embarrass videos from last Saturday.

USSS members should be 6’5” terrifying meat shields with guns. Yes Brienne of Tarth, no to Caroline Ellison.

Do you have any particular evidence that the SS is too…effeminate? It sounds like you’re reasoning backwards from the conclusion, here.

Do you consider the presence of a Melissa McCarthy lookalike in Trump's personal detail to be evidence? I can't imagine an institution with healthy masculinity allowing this slob to occupy any highly visible position.

I've seen her, and I've seen her failing to get her pistol back in her holster, apparently because of her muffin top. I've seen it in slo-mo while people mocked her.

I'm not confident she actually did a bad job, or that any of the criticism of her is deserved. I think the reports of a quota for female agents are extremely worrying, but I've seen no evidence, other than her shortness, that she's actually bad at her job. I don't see why her less than perfect beauty is relevant; either she can do the job or she can't, and most of the things I'm seeing her criticized for don't appear to be actual failures at doing the job.

What did she actually do wrong? She's pretty clearly not the one making the call on the snipers, nor is she the one making the call on getting Trump off the stage. Near as I can tell, she fucked up her holstering during an insane adrenaline dump, exacerbated by what is either some pudge or her concealed vest, or both. What's the actual complaint?

Obesity isn't just "less than perfect beauty", it's a reflection of actual physical vitality and fitness. Having fat women do this job is just an obviously stupid idea whether she personally screwed anything up this time or not. That we're at the point where people justify enlisting fat women in roles that should be done by fit men is an incredible indictment of the discourse. Even if the complaint was strictly aesthetic and somehow her appearance wasn't reflected in physical performance, I would still object to an elite security force being staffed by people that can't be bothered to look the part. This sort of degradation reflects a culture of tolerating sloppiness and not demanding high levels of performance.

Show me evidence that the fitness standards have been lowered. Show me evidence that she would have failed the old standards. I'm ready to believe it, and condemn it, but I'm not going to presume it. And to be clear, I think it's entirely possible that they have been. It's just not obvious to me based on the video. Maybe that means I'm bad at estimating bodyguard performance, but in my defense, any lack of capability on the part of the bulletcatchers is completely overwhelmed by the part where a sniper was allowed to get seven shots off at the principle.

You can see the standards here and they are a joke.

If you don't think her physical appearance demonstrates a lack of serious physical standards, I really don't think I can convince you of this though. Contra the saying, you can pretty well judge a book by its cover when it comes to fitness.

Contra the saying, you can pretty well judge a book by its cover when it comes to fitness.

False.

That is what gymbros call a "strongfat" build. Seems to be most common in Polynesians. But you can tell that guy is strong despite also being a fatty.